Oddly Detached
by englishtutor
Summary: In which Mary Morstan gets to know the real John Watson. Addendum to my story called "Mary".


This is an addendum to my first story, called "Mary". Because of the flow of that story, I had to move Mary and John from casual acquaintances to committed relationship in the space of one paragraph. I left me feeling unsatisfied, and this is the result.

Spoiler alert for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's book "The Sign of Four". And my sincere apologies for taking his masterpiece and mangling for my own ends. I especially regret changing his masterful climax in which his two heroes draw their weapons and fire simultaneously. I love that scene, and yet in the modern version, while I could see Lestrade and his team conveniently neglecting to notice John's retention of his service weapon, I could not justify any of the characters involved overlooking Sherlock's possession of an illegal firearm

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooo

She stood in the dark amid the flashing emergency lights of police cars and an ambulance and felt so light-headed—so detached. When she had received the mysterious letter that day, she had known something strange was bound to come of it, perhaps something dangerous. That was why she had asked for help rather than answering the letter's summons alone. A wise choice, it seemed. Now she looked up at the sinister, shadowy Shalto residence and felt nothing. A man was dead, another in custody, and she had learned something of the truth of her own father's disappearance. And she felt nothing. It was as if all this were happening to someone else. And it seemed the wrong things clamored for her attention.

"Mary," she heard someone say, voice filled with compassion. "Are you okay?"

She turned to John and smiled sadly. "I'm fine, really. It just seems so unreal."

"I'm sorry about you father," he said softly. He didn't understand that, to Mary, her father had been dead for most of her life. She knew how she was supposed to feel about it, but she couldn't make it matter to her. John continued, with a concerned tone in his voice. "Look, I have to go help out with things, but I'll take you home soon. Sgt. Donovan will be here if you need anything." He walked back into the house, and Mary suddenly felt something. Loss. Odd.

Mary looked at Donovan and smiled. "I don't need a sitter, truly. I'm sure you've more important things to do."

Donovan shrugged. "They have it covered. I'm superfluous just now." She looked curiously at Mary. "He fancies you, you know."

Mary dragged her mind back outside of the dark house. "What?"

"The doctor. He fancies you."

Mary thought that was an extraordinary thing for a stranger to say to her. "How can you possibly tell?"

"You work with a bloke for a year and a half, you get to know him pretty well."

Mary had worked with John in the clinic for nearly a year and didn't know him at all. She was just beginning to realize that this was entirely her own fault.

"Isn't he rather a playboy?" she asked tentatively.

Donovan snorted derisively. "John? You ARE kidding. Who told you that?"

It was Mary's turn to shrug. "Office gossip."

Donovan chuckled. "As if. I'll tell you John's problem: it's that he's the committed type. It's hard to get on his 'friend' list, but once you are, he's your friend for life. And unfortunately for him, he's committed his friendship to Sherlock Holmes. If any girl can put up with Sherlock and his chaos for more than two weeks put together, she'll own John Watson's heart forever."

Mary mulled this information over silently, still feeling oddly detached.

Donovan, however, was not one for silence. "Let me give you a word of advice: stay away from those two. Sherlock's a total psychopath, and John's a nice guy and all, but he's just not worth having to live in Sherlock's world with him."

Mary wondered about that.

Soon John rescued her from Donovan's helpfulness. Lestrade had given them use of a squad car, and although the officer driving it was perfectly capable of escorting a lady home, John got into the car and rode with her, looking pleasantly worried. He walked her up to her flat, took her key, and opened the door for her.

"You're sure you're all right?" It was the voice he used when he spoke to his patients: kind, soft, caring.

"I'm fine, really. That was actually the most exciting evening I've had since . . . well . . . ever. Thank you for everything," she smiled, still feeling surreal and also uncertain as to what he might expect from her now. Did he and Sherlock get paid for their services? Should she invite him inside?

John smiled back—his real smile, not his doctor smile. The one that lit up his face and made him look ten years younger. "Don't thank us yet. There's still Jonathon Small to catch up to. We'll keep working on that, and I'll keep you informed."

He left, and she felt that sense of loss again. How odd.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 

She sat in front of her dressing table mirror and stared at her reflection. After nearly two weeks of alternatively waiting patiently and then running madly, her case had been neatly wrapped up two nights ago. Another man was dead, Jonathan Small was in custody. Her father's murder was solved. It all felt like a dream, and all relatively unimportant. In her mind, this entire adventure had actually had little to do with her father and mysterious letters and a lot to do with learning about John Watson.

For the past year of working in the clinic, she had always viewed John Watson as two different personae—the doctor she observed and the cad she heard about in office gossip. Asking him for help two weeks earlier had been an act of utter desperation, having no one else to turn to. Always before, she had avoided him as much as was possible in such a small establishment, because she was not interested in shallow relationships. It only took one evening spent in this company to realize the "cad" persona was a misperception, and she hadn't needed the overly-vocal Sgt. Donovan to tell her that. That left her with the "doctor" persona: the kind smile and reassuring voice that calmed the most anxious of patients; the unfailing good manners, patient listening posture and attentive, perceptive gaze that made it easy for patients to confide in him; the swift and confident mind that made him easily the most brilliant diagnostician she had ever worked with. His colleagues were willing to put up with a lot—a sudden need for two weeks off, for example- in order to keep him in their clinic. His patients adored him, and many would willingly postpone their appointments in order to be seen by him rather than another physician.

But two weeks of watching him work with Sherlock Holmes gave her reason to believe that there were, in fact, two John Watsons after all. The "doctor" persona was still dominant, gently keeping Sherlock reigned in, acting as a buffer and interpreter between the eccentric detective and the rest of the world with his long-suffering and calming presence. The two of them were amazing together, working in tandem, each with his own part to play. But there was something else there, in John; an edge that wasn't present when he was in the clinic. His military bearing sharpened, and sometimes in his face she could see the icy determination of a soldier on a mission that was chilling. And yet, at the same time, there was a rare joy in his demeanor on the field that she'd never seen in him in the clinic. Mary Morstan had never been able to bear boring people. John Watson was revealing himself to be the most not-boring person she'd ever met.

Then, two days ago, they had flushed Jonathan Small out of hiding and a pursuit of him and his accomplice began, culminating in a wild chase down the Thames in fishing yachts. The surreal feeling Mary had experienced at the Shalto house two weeks before returned in force as DI Lestrade firmly escorted her below deck and instructed her to stay there. She had not, of course. How could she miss out on the exciting conclusion of her own mystery? She sneaked back up and hid where she could see, not the boat they were pursuing, but John's face, exhilarated and joyous, reveling in the hunt. She watch him and Sherlock exchange grins as they shouted encouragement to the boat's captain to go faster, faster! Soon she perceived by their expressions that they were catching up to their quarry. Suddenly she saw John's face change, grim and all business.

"Down!" he shouted. No one hesitated, but obeyed his command immediately and flattened themselves on the deck just as rapid gunfire sprayed the boat. The shots went wild, of course: shooting a moving target from a moving boat would be nearly impossible. Then, before anyone else could react, John pulled out his firearm, rose to one knee, aimed, and fired in one fluid motion, quick as thinking. Two shots, and great splash, then silence. John stood.

"Stand down!" he ordered, eerily calm but clearly expecting immediate compliance. It was the most frightening, most splendid thing Mary had ever seen. Jonathan Small cut his engines and surrendered.

John swiftly returned his obviously illegal weapon to his waistband, looked at Lestrade sheepishly, and said, "Sorry."

The look on Lestrade's face was priceless. "What for, mate? If the chap's so clumsy he nosedives out of his own boat, that's not your fault, is it?"

Mary crept back down into the hold, realizing that she could never let anyone know what she'd seen, lest someone file a complaint against John and she was called upon to testify against him.

Now she sat before her mirror, getting ready to go back to the clinic; back to normal life. And she didn't want it. She'd had a taste of something wonderful, and she didn't want to go back. The idea of her days continuing on in the same vein bereft of the excitement she'd been part of recently was unacceptable.

With disgust, Mary suddenly realized that she'd just spent more time fussing with her hair than she had in since her uni days. "Idiot," she muttered, and pinned her blonde mane up into the sensible style she always used for work. "You're going to work, not on a date." And now she was going to be late. She rushed out without breakfast, annoyed with herself.

And yet, the first thing she did when she arrived at work was stop by the front desk and do a quick search of the room. There he was, talking quietly to one of the nurses, a case file held between them. Then he looked up, as if feeling eyes upon him, saw her, and smiled warmly. His REAL smile; the one that turned her knees to mush and made her feel like the only person in the room. She felt herself blushing, and forced herself to go to her office. "Idiot," she berated herself. "Are you a twelve-year-old now?" She hardly did her patients justice that morning. They were all so unutterable dull.

She was eating lunch in the break room when John walked in. "May I?" he asked, ever the gentleman. She nodded, her mouth unfortunately full, and he sat across the table from her.

"Still doing okay?" he began tentatively.

She nodded again. "I read your blog last night. It was brilliant. But did Sherlock really say that about me? That I showed promise, or whatever?" Because if he had, she knew it was very high praise, coming from him.

"Contrary to popular belief, I don't make things up to put into my blog. It's all the absolute truth. Although I do occasionally leave things out," John admitted. "Sherlock thinks quite highly of you, I think, in his own way."

They sat in companionable silence for a minute, eating sandwiches from waxed paper packages and sipping coffee from paper cups.

"So, not running away from me anymore, then?" John asked, breaking the quiet.

Her immediate reaction was, of course, to deny she'd ever done any such thing. But that would have been to call him an idiot when he was obviously highly observant; and it would have started out what she hoped would become a friendship with dishonesty. "I apologize for that. It was your reputation, as it turns out, and not the real you I was avoiding."

He looked honestly surprised. "I have a reputation?"

"Oh, yeah," she dimpled.

"Not a good one, I take it?"

She chuckled. "Depends on what a girl wants, I suppose. Personally, I'm not into shallow, temporary liaisons."

John groaned. "For the record, neither am I. I'm just not good at judging that in other people, I guess. And, to give Sarah credit, she didn't break up with me after being kidnapped and almost killed on a date with me. It was me almost being blown up by a psychopath that did it. She couldn't handle the stress, and I couldn't really blame her."

He looked at her carefully, as if weighing how much stress he thought she could live with. She smiled brightly at him. "I know this is probably very warped of me, but the past two weeks I spent on this case with you were the most fun I've ever had in my life."

He smiled. His REAL smile; the one that made the sun come out and tilted the world correctly onto its axis. And Mary Morstan, who had spent her life constantly moving, who never stayed in one place long, realized that she could live in that smile for the rest of her life and never be bored.

"With me, you said. What about Sherlock?" he teased.

Mary's dimples deepened. "Sherlock? Was he along as well? He's so unobtrusive, I hardly noticed."

John chuckled. "Would you like to go to dinner with me tonight, then?"

"I'd like nothing more." Mary suddenly felt settled back into the world, no longer surreal or detached, as if all the odd pieces had clicked into place. This was going to be interesting.


End file.
